A Gestalt-Informed Experiential CPD Retreat Integrating Yoga Theory and Practice

This experiential CPD retreat integrates Gestalt psychotherapy theory with contemplative frameworks drawn from classical yoga philosophy and Samkhyan psychology such as Patanjali's Yoga Sutras. The program is designed to deepen practitioners’ understanding of recurring emotional, behavioural, and relational patterns and support clinically relevant self-awareness and therapeutic presence.

Participants will explore the Gestalt cycle of experience alongside concepts including samskaras (conditioning patterns), vrittis (mental fluctuations), and gunas (qualities of mind and behaviour), with emphasis on how these frameworks may support case conceptualisation, relational awareness, and embodied therapeutic practice.

The retreat combines didactic teaching, facilitated experiential inquiry, reflective discussion, mindfulness practices, breathwork, trauma- informed movement-based awareness practices such as yoga, and clinical integration sessions. Learning is grounded in both self-reflective process and application to psychotherapy and counselling practice.

This program is educational in nature and is not intended to provide personal psychotherapy, diagnosis, or treatment.

This program supports mental health professionals to develop:

• Enhanced self-awareness and reflective capacity
• A greater understanding of pattern formation and relational dynamics
• Embodied approaches to therapeutic presence
• Somatic and mindfulness-informed clinical skills
• Integration of experiential awareness into therapeutic process
• The retreat is intended to deepen the practitioners capacity for attuned, relational, and ethically grounded psychotherapy practice

Not by forcing change, but by developing awareness and choice.

The content is taught in a clear, practical and experiential way. You’re not expected to share beyond what feels comfortable and you’re always welcome to participate in your own way. The aim is not to overwhelm you with information, but to give you something you can actually use both personally and professionally.

Who This Retreat Is For

• Mental health professionals, therapists, counsellors, psychologists and social workers

Meet your facilitators

Evelyn Bowes is a PACFA-registered psychotherapist and accredited PACFA supervisor with professional experience in psychotherapy, experiential process work, and contemplative practices. She is also a qualified yoga teacher with training in yoga philosophy, meditation, pranayama, and embodied awareness practices.

Evelyn integrates psychotherapeutic and contemplative frameworks within ethically grounded professional education contexts.

Darci is the founder of Australia Yoga Teacher Training, a well known and established yoga school that traings and mentors yoga teachers in Brisbane, Gold Coast, Northern Rivers and online. Darci is also currently in her third year of a Masters degree in Gestalt therapy: a relational, present-focused approach to psychotherapy that explores how patterns form through past experience and continue to shape behaviour, perception, and responses in the present. 

What brought Evie and Darci together was a shared approach: using yoga not just as a physical practice, but as a way to understand patterns, behaviour, and the way we relate to ourselves and others.

Their work is shaped by both traditional teachings, including the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali, and contemporary psychotherapeutic approaches.

Together, they bring a combined approach that is both structured, experiential and trauma informed. Their retreats are designed to help participants  become aware of patterns, how they are formed, how they are maintained, and how they can begin to shift—using tools drawn from yoga, mindfulness, and psychotherapy-informed frameworks.

Their work is less about teaching concepts, and more about creating the conditions for people to observe, understand, and work with their own experience in a way that is grounded and sustainable.